This one made me laugh really hard whereas the other recent ones only made me smile ;). You still manage to surprise me Shamus, I thought you already abused every situation that could possibly happen in a D&D game. :)

Certainly the most brilliant episode so far, in my opinion. Great job alluding to the corresponding (and somewhat perplexing) plot alteration from the movies. I wonder whether Peter Jackson made the same mistake that our DM made, and corrected it in the same way. Hmmm…

I particularly enjoyed the commentary on the fallacies in the movie by having Elrond show up. So pleasantly subtle and tasty. I think that you should let your dissatisfaction with the movies come out more in the comic. It’s hilarious!

My wife and I are reading the books again for the first time since the movies came out. It’s wonderful to have the characters back from their twisted cinema-versions. Comforting to have Frodo be competent and not wide-eyed and scared the whole time.

I dunno… You gotta be leery of any sword with a name. Like as not, it may have a mind of its own.

That reminds me of a book I read: Bring me the Head of Prince Charming.
Near the end, Prince Charming comes across Excalibur, which indeed has amind of its own, and seems obsessed with killing things. And it crawls away on its own to do that. Prince Charming quickly abandons the sword after that. I admit it’s not a great book, but it’s good for a couple of laughs.

In the books Aragorn purposefully hides the fact that he has this sword. No modern moviegoer who hadn’t already read the books would beleive this. Therefore you throw it in when, in the books, the blade would be revealed.

TalrogSmash: In the books, Aragorn doesn’t hide Anduril after it’s reforged. He uses it openly (e.g., in Moria), and gives its whole history to Hama the doorward when the latter insists that they not bring weapons before Theoden. (That it’s specifically that sword is the reason Aragorn says he’s reluctant to let it go. “I would do as the master of the house bade me, were this only a woodman’s cot, if I bore now any sword but Anduril.”)

(If anything, the trick is to get him to stop telling you about the sword. :-) )

In any case, the events of this strip are a better explanation for the reshuffling of the sequence than Jackson came up with.

Okay, so did I already mention my friend who was playing Mordenkainen’s Dungeon with another friend of his as DM?

That dungeon starts the players off in front of a lock and absolutely impassable door– you can’t disintegrate, fireball, cut, break, lockpick, _wish_, astral travel, or ANYTHING to get through that door. The only thing that will open it is the Key of Opening, which the players are supposed to start out with (through whatever mechanism the DM decides in order to fit it into one’s ongoing campaign or whatever).

So after four hours of the players trying to pick the lock, fireball their way in, disintegrate the doors and so on, after getting TOTALLY frustrated with the whole thing, finally the DM asked, “Why don’t you just use that key you started out with?”

Yeah, he’d forgotten to give them the key. I think that was the last time he got to be DM…

He has Anduril the whole time and doesn’t really hide the fact either. In fact, he even warns the Palace Guards in Rohan that only he may draw the sword without being harmed when they take Anduril from him. Not much hiding there.

So, I spent my time between actually working catching up to today’s post, and am already anxious for next Monday… good thing I can laugh out loud and actually show my supervisor the website (and email it to him at his request) when I burst out loud laughing (call center tech support, we all get the inside jokes).

I’ve emailed this site to all my D&D friends, and we all think you have a webcam spying on us.

Mirth and merriment has been had by all, keep up the good work. Now that I’m done catching up, I’ll have to see about supporting you by clicking adds or buying merch (if you have any). I was too busy reading to explore the rest of your offerings/links.

I think it’s linked to Aragorn’s development as a character. I base this on Elrond telling him “Put off the Ranger and become the King you were born to be” (Nixorbo Roughly From Memory version). Anduril symbolizes Aragorn’s commitment to accepting his inheritence, where he chooses to finally stop being a mere Ranger and take the responsibility of leadership.

That’s why Jackson moved it, to show Aragorn’s character development, from Strider to Elessar.

brassbaboon Says:
Heh, you should have posted the swords stats too, like in an item box next to the sword as Aragorn holds it up so we can see how awesome it is too.

No good. This is Anduril, the famous Sword of Plot-Adaptive Stats. Basically, if the DM decides the plot needs it, the sword can do it at that time. Repeat performances on player demand are not guaranteed.

So I decide to do some reading while waiting for some support in DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) only to see this and laugh out loud soooo hard. The main reason is… I’ve done just that! Forget to give a key element of the plot when I was suppose to.

Oh man…that was me as the DM. Seriously, reading text boxes I shouldn’t have (flavortextflavortext, and now the party is jumped by….*sigh) or forgetting plot points in my custom campaigns. Thanks Shamus.